As it turns out, stained glass is a very difficult hobby! Instead of starting with a nice easy moon or feather piece, I decided it would be a better idea to draw my own (Grateful Dead inspired) design.
This was my first mistake; a great idea in theory but much too complicated for my first creation. Within a few days of frustration and wasted materials, I had completed my first piece! It was messy, ugly and looked nothing like the picture but I didn't give up and, for that, I was proud of myself. No photos were taken in the making of this disaster I quickly realized that I didn't like using the soldering method, but I wanted to find another way to use all this unused glass. Upon further research, I had stumbled upon the glue/grout method. This technique allowed me to use small and large pieces of glass, glue them to the clear backing of a frame and use grout to fill in the spaces between each piece. After a few tries, I finished my first piece using this method:
The result was a bit sloppy, the edges were jagged (I had yet to discover the glass grinder) and the design was amateurish but I was proud none-the-less. I had found my niche.